


for you, all the words left unsaid

by azure7539



Series: Azure's 007 Fest 2019 [12]
Category: Edge of Tomorrow (2014), James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, 007 Fest 2019, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-20 15:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19994356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azure7539/pseuds/azure7539
Summary: When Bond dies, he starts the day all over again. Every single time.





	for you, all the words left unsaid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Castillon02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/gifts).



> _(an **Edge of Tomorrow (2014)** crossover_  
>   
>  **PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS**. I can’t stress this enough.  
>   
> Also, many thanks to [castillon02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02), who rekindled my drive to actually write this up instead of just letting it hang out in the back of my mind. You’re awesome <3

_“Find me when you wake up—”_

The words rang in Bond’s ears like a warning siren, drawn out and faded away as though he was drowning underwater. And maybe he was because he couldn’t rationally remember the last time he had been able to breathe properly without feeling like wishing that his lungs would implode in on themselves to spare him the pain of another rewired existence.

Not that it’d work. He’d reset back precisely where he’d started all this and begin again.

Again. Again. And again. Round and round it went.

Time loops were arseholes like that. Not that he had ever been in another time loop, but the point still stood.

(You’d think that pop culture would’ve prepared him for this, but no.)

“Come find me when you wake up!”

_I know._ He wanted to say, firing at an embedded enemy from far away that he’d known would be there. _Q, I know._

_I tried._ He wanted to shout, slamming the opposition into the ground and proceeding tear it apart.

_I tried, and I tried. And I did everything you asked, everything you trained me for._ He wanted to scream, heart pumping as loud as the pulsing misery all around him as the fight raged on in an endless sea of fire. _But you keep dying every single time. No matter what I do, you keep dying, and I can’t—_

_I can’t._

In front of his eyes was nothing that he had used to think he’d ever see, and everything he now ached, with all the dying breaths that he kept taking, to _never_ see again.

Q’s neck broken as he lay there in a trench of the battlefield, his neck lolling to the side at an awkward angle.

Q’s innards gouged out in a brutal slash as he shrieked and crashed to the ground, losing blood quicker than he could manage to mumble a few last words that Bond was just either too in shock or too numbed to hear.

The light leaving Q’s eyes as his weapon fell in a dull thud from his bruising grip, sometimes looking desperately at Bond and most other times staring at the distant, hopeless victory that they didn’t seem to be getting any closer to gaining. 

Murdered. Murdered. Murdered.

(Bond couldn’t remember how many times he had held Q’s death-leaden body in his arms anymore, limp and lifeless and so so pale, but then he supposed it would be a twisted thing to actually try and keep track of.)

“What is it?”

Bond snapped out of his trance just in time to see Q push the frame of his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, one of his eyebrows raised questioningly. (Q wore contact lenses, too—his mind supplied unhelpfully—but only when he got ready for imminent combat.)

They were once more talking about the same strategy layout that Bond had already known, and he tried to open his mouth, mind racing over all the remaining options that he could possibly choose for this sort of situations.

_It’s going to be a slaughter tomorrow_ , he wanted to say, regulating his breathing so his heart would cease its senseless pounding in his ribcage. _But all I want to do right here, right now, is to feel the softness of your hair and the promise of your body like a comforting weight on top of my own._

_It’s going to be a slaughter tomorrow_ , he wanted to say, palms clammy the and nape of his neck overheated. _And this will be the 400th something time that we’ve planned for this. But what if we simply cannot stop it?_

_It’s going to be a slaughter tomorrow_ , he wanted to say, phantom blood sticky all along his hands and at the tips of his restless, twitching fingers. _And I’m so tired. It just keeps happening, and I—_

_I don’t want to see you die again._

But Bond said none of these things. Of course not.

Instead, he only allowed himself a small smile he couldn’t really feel and said, “Nothing. Just wanted to say that you’re beautiful.”

* * *

_(Next time they’re out on the front line, Bond stares as Q chokes on his own blood right before his eyes—lungs punctured and dying a slow, suffocating death, his body jerking as the blood purged itself from between those red, red lips—and shoots him through the head.)_

**Author's Note:**

> _[ **Prompt fill for Angst Prompt Table:** Murder + Disembowelment]_


End file.
